isn't that what makes them memorable? that there is this one defining work. harper lee never wrote anything else, and i dont think she could ever eclipse mockingbird. that's what makes books wonderful, i think. that they're unpredictable. some christies are masterpieces, and some classics are insufferable.

 

there are two kinds of authors. but where do you stand? the first or the second type? or neither?i stand in the first. keep posting, i can see a change. rhododendron

 

you HAVE to be so aloof in your trail of thoughts, don't you? earth to sushmita. welcome to this world of perhaps a tad bit stupid but fairly normal humans. how does it feel to be among us? i confess I am surprised how sijin and you are able to communicate (you do need to communicate for arguing too). i would have called you ppl poles apart but hell, even they are too near.

 

true. but i still think, one needs to applaud a good second buk after a brilliant first.

and wait wait.
is enid blyton missing???

 

The problem is essentially that we get too judgmental. It isn't an author's fault that his first publication ushered in a whole new generation of writing.
Im sure authors aren't supercilious enough to go, " Ok. Now I am going to sit down and write something that will change the world". That's what we bring it to, I guess, in all our overenthusiasm.
Khaled Hosseini, for example.A thousand splendid suns is not as good as Kite Runner is, maybe. But its charm lies elsewhere. And that is what stays on.

 

woah, you really get a lot of comments.i always feel like a dork leaving comments.

"A good book tells the truth about its characters. A bad book tells the truth about its author".-nice.

 

What makes u think i did not read the post?

 

now....i totally disagree with you about agatha christi and her types (the second grp) to be boring,why hypocrite!! you once only said agatha is one of your best authors and anyway , writtng books about the same stuff and still earning money for that,...i think thats an art... rather than writing one super book and then living the rest of your life in a dark alley with no life seeing people make money by writing sequels to your own book(this is with reference to M. Mitchell)-ziah

 

Stagnation, not only with reference to the story but even style (however inevitable) does not reconcile with my preconcieved notion of an author (in the truest meaning of the title). I quite agree with Zara here. They do blur into one another. Isn't it much better to write only one but brilliant book than to write ten mediocre ones. We are not contesting who writes the most but who writes the best. Why crowd the already tremendous bounty of literature with things it could do without. Being repetitive and making money out of it (a crass way of putting it) is making use of mob mentality and 'fads'. Not art, but smart. And frankly, if I ever write anything so good that people write sequels to it, I would be very flattered indeed. And, oh yeah, people who write these sequels have to first pay the author for the rights to do so. Thus, I strongly doubt a 'dark alley' where one will find them.